Futuregazing: 10 For 2010

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Brief self-linking ahoy – IGN asked me to pen a quick round-up of ten of the most theoretically scintillating PC games due next year. That’s “10 of”, not “the 10”. It’s all stuff you fine, PC-loving human beings will already be eminently aware of, but thought you’d be interested to a) observe the random leaps my tiny brain makes when coming up with lists and b) start thinking in this thread about what you’re most looking forward to, given 2009’s big games are about to come and go this month. Yeah? Yeah.

(Oh, and I didn’t write the bit about Alienware at the bottom, and I’m sorry about the intro typo.)

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As for 2010 I have no hope that my computer will be able to play ANYTHING released that year that I've actually heard of already. Maybe some indie games will pop up out of no where (maybe an expansion to something for Torchlight) but nothing I know of right now. Diablo 2 and Starcraft 2 MIGHT work on my computer but I'm not really certain they're going to come out in 2010 and I'm not certian they will work either. Hopefully though my tax return for 2010 will be large enough to net me a NEW computer, doubtful though I just got a court summons. I'm being sued by a debt collector for a car they repoed for me in 2007 :P

And more generally, adjectives (and adjectival participles) can be used as nouns when referring to the people that possess the trait in question. Common examples include the rich, the poor, the young, the old, the handicapped, the wounded, etc.

A lot of multiplayer titles, which isn’t so good for a hardline single player person such as myself.

I’ll deffo be getting Armoured Princess though. About 2/3 through KB:The Legend, and loving every minute. (even if my frog princess keeps on turning back into a frog all the damned time… four kids not enough for her???)

If you are gonna appologise for something it should be the Grudawful layout of that IGN page. It looks like data vomit.
Certain countries always had a really nice aesthetic for magazine layouts but American games mags were always as bland and boxy as hell. The same design mentality has translated to games sites.

eh, apart from . . . and ‘Sniper Elite’? Sniper Elite ‘wasn’t an orrible clunker? We must have been playing a different game cause the one I played felt like a badly programed, shallow, repetitive console port.

Of course, I do know this RPS top10 was JUST a top 10 and not TEH top 10.

But I have to say that about half of the RPS top doesn’t quite made my own top 10. No hard feelings though, the majority of them were titles I had been looking forward to, but sort of went ‘off radar’.

The good thing I’m finding about King’s Bounty is that you can leave it off for months on end, and then immediately come back and pick it up again without any problems. That, and battles only last maybe 10 minutes each, which makes it ideal for when you’re a little short on spare time.

Anyway, since htis is about top ten lists for 2010, mine would be (in no particular order)

Diablo III is unconfirmed for 2010, but it would surprise me a whole lot if it would be released in 2011.

I am sure it will either hit this Christmass 2009 or early next year. From the looks of it, the main gameplay part is almost done. Knowing Blizzard, they aren’t going to take ages finishing the level design and content.

Played a little bit of SupCom 2 at PAX. It was… a very early build, clearly, but enjoyable for all that. Best part was the tech tree – one tech would give your units personal shields, the next would increase damage by 50%, the next would unlock a super-unit… none of this “+2% critical chance” that you kids are always MMOing today.

There’s some very quickly put together English translation for Armoured Princess, if you want to get the other version. It was done by almost literally putting the text through Google translate. I haven’t tried it, but apparently it’s …playable.

And on the “please please please” list:
* A possible Batman Arkham Asylum 2
* Anything adventure-ish from Telltale Games.
* A Grim Fandango or Day of the Tentacle remake a-la Monkey Island (they said it was possible if Monkey Island sold well!)

Honestly, as long as TF2 exists, I won’t feel the pressure to buy anything soon, except for SC2 and Mafia 2, because those games gave me many sleepless nights. Then there is the obvious WoW expansion, so that might be a must buy for some people and I will be probably among them, if only to check out the new content and stop playing after 2 months.

Gutted that our forthcoming game didn’t make this list, and yet that perennially smug man Cliff Harris is getting even more attention. The fact that his game is mighty impressive and we’ve hardly done any press yet is utterly beside the point.

Mass Effect 2 is an automatic purchase for me – scope, breadth and the additional sparkle of Bioware silliness combined make a lovely cake.

Of that, there’s no question I’m buying King’s Bounty: Armored Princess, STALKER: Call of Pripyat, and I already own Gratuitous Space Battles. Aliens Vs Predator and Starcraft 2 are distinct possibilities, but not guaranteed. The platformers and MMO’s are automatically disqualified for reason of genre.

To immediately partially contradict my last sentence, I’m looking forward (with some hope and some trepidation) to Guild Wars 2 (which may or may not make it out next year). Other notables I’m waiting for are Age of Decadence, Assassin’s Creed 2, Bioshock 2, Mass Effect 2, Disciples 3 (if they ever release the damn thing), Elemental: War of Magic, and Fallout 3: New Vegas. Also, Diablo 3 and Sword of the Stars 2, but I doubt they’ll see release next year either.

I have a sudden urge to purchase a Alienware M17x. I trust my RPSian overlords and follow their every instruction.

Wait, what?

Also, a whole lot of the sequels coming out next year I’m not immediately interested in, as I have yet to play the first game in the series … some of them I even own, but haven’t gotten around to yet. Mass Effect, Bioshock, Assassin’s Creed, Stalker, etc. This is sort of a good thing, as by the time I get to them, the price will have fallen. However, there’s a whole bunch of coverage that I have to avoid in order to evade spoilers. I don’t get to read any of RPS’s recent, glorious prose on Bioshock 2, for example.

A gimmickless 2D platformer might be worth looking forward to, given the constant stream of 2D gimmick puzzle platformers that everyone keeps on putting out, but how is it going to compare with the delights of Mario?

“The decision to split the game into three meaty chunks, each based around a typically lavish/overwrought (delete as applicable) Blizzardian narrative and bespoke singleplayer missions is a sign that they’re certainly not simply doing the same-again-but-with-better-graphics thing.”

Oh come on, I like Blizzard and I’ll freely admit it’s a cash grab. Every reason they’ve given for why it’s in three parts means that the first one should have been.

so it’ll be what, 150+ dollars for the ‘expansions’ as well? Fuck that – come on Blizzard, what are you doing?

If I got that right, it will be £29.99 for Wings of Liberty and £19.99 for Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void each.
That’s quite much, but they’re promising for *each* release to be as long as the complete original Starcraft campaign arch (which includes all 3 campaigns). I’d be mighty impressed if they could pull this off, but then again, they are Blizzard…

I think we need to see how the different gamestyles pan out. The multiple paths of WINGS OF LIBERTY, the RPG aspect of HEART OF THE SWARM and the, erm, whatever it is they’re doing for LEGACY OF THE VOID. If they are different enough to make the three games effectively separate titles, I’ll be impressed and they should be worth the money.

I must admit though, given they have more money than God and this game will sell millions of copies in its first few months on sale, it would have been impressive if Blizzard had given us a game with 90+ single-player missions plus the full multiplayer set-up plus dozens of ultra-high-res cut-scenes pluse three different control/design focuses for the different races in one go for £30. But then we’d probably be waiting for another five years before the whole thing finally arrived, which would be taking us into DUKE NUKE’EM FOREVER territory with regards to development time.

On the other hand, where is the cut-off point where a split would be acceptable for people? Given I’ve never seen an RTS with more than 50 missions before, and you’re lucky if you get any with more than 20 these days, I’m not sure it’s logical to expect over 90 SP missions (let alone MP as well) for the price of one game, especially if there’s a massively expensive cut scene every 2-3 missions as in the original game.

Interesting that you chose two indie games. I would have expected only one.
Was there a reason for choosing two? Did you want to promote indies, or do you think indies have become important enough to warrant more attention, or were those just two games you wanted to mention?

And I would have said Metro 2033, but I saw console release, and sighed. I try not to do that, but it’s just habit now. Also Aliens Vs. Predator, but then I saw no dedicated servers, and moved on. Starcraft 2 I’m just… there’s so much going on here I dislike.

Big PC projects sure are lame these days. The only exciting items for me are a sequel and an expansion (SC2.1 and KB1.2). Alpha Protocol looks okay, but things looked a lot better when Beyond Good & Evil 2 was around.

Just wanted to point out that there are some engines where you can – gasp! – develop for consoles and PCs at the same time, but – gaspier! – have entirely different control schemes, etc., for each, all driven by the same core code.

What I’m saying is, you can write a whole damned game (with care) and flip a switch to get console ports. It’s not quite that simple, but at a multi-million dollar budget level, it is. Therefore, just because something has a console release does not mean it was *designed* for consoles and is instantly deserving of scorn.